Outside Grace
by Arashi Leonhart
Summary: Short little ficlet, post-UBW.  Shinji hovers outside Shirou's birthday party, and Rin confronts him.


Outside Grace

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><p>I escaped from the bluster of the party, still fretting a little over what Shirou had given me. He was just as embarrassed as I was, which didn't help, and despite the happy occasion to be celebrating his birthday here with all of our friends, it seemed like neither of us would be able to fully enjoy ourselves until we had this matter out of the way.<p>

I didn't feel like waiting around, though, so I ended up wandering back out into the hall when I noticed shadows moving beyond the screen of the entryway. The early summer light caught the shadow in the midst of pacing about the door, and I suddenly had a sneaking suspicion.

Quietly slipping into my shoes, I crept up to the door and threw it open.

Shinji Matou stood just beyond, and he flinched back from the suddenness of my appearance.

"Matou-kun," I said as neutrally as possible.

"Tohsaka," he muttered, not in that arrogant or pushy was as before, but now wary and unsure. It reminded me of a beaten animal that wanted to be fed, unsure if its owner would lash it or put food down.

"Here for Shirou's birthday party?" I asked.

Sneering, the boy looked off to one side, as if the very thought was beneath him. Ah. Much more like what I thought of when conjuring him to mind. "Just passing through is all."

I couldn't help the bit of a smile that made its way onto my face. In hindsight, it sometimes does seem like Shinji had all of the training of a magus in the regards of covering up one's personal feelings. Even if he wasn't formally trained, I wondered if something about his life had subtly molded that into him. "Just passing through, hmm? Right in front of the door? Multiple times? Did you drop something on the right, pass to the left, then go back and pick it up again, only to drop it again, and then have to go back and—"

"Alright, alright, shut up. Just, shut up." Despite the bitter tone, there was no strength behind his words.

I grinned in victory. "Shinji, just come on in if you feel the need. Nobody here is going to hurt you."

He gave another sneer, though it seemed more to himself this time. "I don't need your pity," he said, then clucked his tongue distastefully.

"It isn't pity, really," I said, shrugging. Actually, this was honestly a good way to get my mind off of things. "I'm sure Shirou would like to see you here, even if you don't talk. Sakura probably would feel relieved too."

"Just because of them, huh?"

I regarded him steadily. The weeks after the Grail War had taken their toll on him and he'd looked gaunt and unhealthy for a good month even after his release from the hospital. Sakura had told Shirou in passing—and he had told me like the gossiping housewife he was—that Shinji had been generally nicer, though possibly just due to the distance he now put to everything. The world was surely a stranger and more dangerous place to him now.

Though I wasn't sure, one way or another, how I was supposed to act around him—or even if I wanted to be around him to begin with—Shirou had continued to express his worry. Shirou being Shirou, it was like nothing Shinji could have done would ever make Shirou not concern himself. Even as Shirou mourned the Einzbern girl he never knew, or the lives he had supposedly seen die before him years ago, he also mourned the friend that he thought might be lost to him.

"I'll be honest with you. I don't know how to feel," I said. "You tried to do some terrible things. You also had some terrible things done to you."

And yet…

_I found my answer._

Well, I guess Shinji could hate me for always bringing it back to Shirou. But it made a lot of sense to me. "I've had to forgive someone else who had some problems like you, so maybe I ought to just let myself do so with you too. But I do want you to understand: it is because Shirou has already taken that step. I think I learn a lot from him."

Though, if Shinji _said_ anything like that _to_ him, I wouldn't hesitate to put my knuckles to his face.

Shinji rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we can all learn from Emiya. Whatever."

Still, the boy followed me as I rounded the house back toward the yard. When Shirou spotted us, the smile he gave—

Yeah.

_I wasn't wrong._

I guess, maybe, trying isn't too bad a thing. Even if it is Shinji.

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><p>End?<p>

But wait…this is Rin we're talking about. She hasn't messed up yet:

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><p>Of course, that still didn't solve our dilemma. Once Shinji had said a brief hello to Shirou and wandered off, I headed back into the house and checked up on the results.<p>

And _then_, even after a quick (read: 20 minute) stint on Shirou's laptop trying to figure out what the stupid thing meant (and how does anyone use a computer anyway? They're so confusing!) I couldn't make heads or tails out of the reading, so I made my way back out to the porch. Fujimura-sensei had somehow dragged a karaoke box out, connected to various cables that led back to the house, and was full-tilt blaring a song about flowers blooming or something.

Shinji looked a little more comfortable, a soda in hand, and the relieved look Sakura shot my way seemed to make it worth the effort. Maybe, just maybe, he'd turn this around.

Ryuudou-kun retreated the moment I made my way up to Shirou, glaring at me like I was the coming of the apocalypse or something. I nudged Shirou with my elbow. "I think your computer is broken."

He looked at me strange. "Why would that be?"

Had I been paying better attention, I would have halted my mouth from flapping off in the relative quiet that followed Fujimura-sensei's song ending. "Nothing I do gives me a straight answer. I mean, what does it mean when the control area doesn't have a line but the pregnancy area does?"

Only then did I recall that Shirou's yard carried sound very well.

For some reason, though, all eyes turned to Shirou, not me. Ayako turned red and covered her mouth with her hand in the way she always did when trying to cover a fit of giggles. Ryuudou-kun looked like someone might have smashed a maul into his stomach. Fujimura-sensei had fainted dead away. I hurriedly glanced Sakura's way, but she had zoned completely out, mouth agape and eyes seemingly as big as my fist.

"Idiot, you bring that up now?" Shirou muttered out of one corner of his mouth.

I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

It was Shinji who broke the onlooker's silence, fingers to the bridge of his nose like he could quell a sudden headache surge. "Dammit, Emiya, I really _do_ hate you."

From her seat next to the table lined with barbeque foodstuffs, Saber smiled as a riot of shouted exclamations and a torrent of questions slew forth. The swordswoman calmly took a bite from her hamburger. Just another lovely day at the Emiya household.

True End


End file.
